France has done the world a favour by going to the United Nations Security Council on Friday the 20th November 2015.

That it got sanction for military action against ISIS (DAESH) is a sign of moving tectonic plates by the standards of the UN.

At the moment it is not important that France’s military response is in fact incompetent or ineffective from a military point of view. (That’s a common failing in military affairs).

It is important because France chose to seek legal authority for its actions and now has it. It is now more difficult for other states to try to pretend that the United Nations is irrelevant. Admittedly, there has been an impasse in the Security Council for many years, but that was a diplomatic not a legal issue.

The real solution to France’s terrorist problem lies in the United Nations at the diplomatic level. France can choke off ISIS funding. That funding is travelling through, and emanating from, member states of the UN. The UN has applied sanctions in such cases, even at the level of named persons. (That system has its problems, but that’s for another day).

France should forthwith seek and get sanctions against those UN members facilitating ISIS. The member states of the European Union should support France in these matters, subject to full and accurate evidence being produced by France to justify its requests.